Fujitsu Announces 386-based Pen Tablet

But not for retail channels

Fujitsu Personal Systems announced in mid-January a $2300, 80386-based pen-based tablet dubbed the “Fujitsu 325Point” that the company expects to ship before the end of the first quarter. The 8.7×11.7×1.2-inch, 3-pound system is built around AMD’s 25-MHz AM386SXLV CPU and comes with 4 Mbytes of RAM (expandable to 8- and 12-Mbytes). However, you won’t be able to buy it at your local computer store because Fujitsu plans only on selling through value-added resellers (VARs) who will likely pack it with custom software and hardware configurations.

Perhaps the most interesting feature of the now-familiar architecture is how the 325Point deals with mass storage: you can insert into a PCMCIA 2.0 slot either a solid-state disk card (5/10/20 Mbytes) or a 30Mbyte 1.8-inch hard disk card.

Almost as interesting is Fujitsu’s claim of up to 8 hours of battery life using (as standard equipment) rechargeable NiCad or optional nickel-metal hydride batteries. The 325Point uses a 3.3 volt power system and includes advanced power management firmware.

We found the 9.4-inch transflective LCD backlit VGA display (with 640×480 resolution) easy to read and the 200 dots/second electro magnetic digitizing pad to be fast enough for most applications.

For the most part, the external interfaces are standard: serial, parallel, external floppy disk, etc. The infrared interface was a pleasant surprise. Among other options are a raft of PCMCIA cards (LAN, fax/data modem, external RAM), a keyboard, and external floppy-disk drive.

The 3325Point will run under standard operating environments, including Microsoft Windows for Pens, Go’s PenPoint, and CIC’s PenDOS.

Contact:

Fujitsu Personal Systems
5200 Patrick Henry Drive
Santa Clara, CA 95054
408-982-9500